GM Alireza Firouzja goes into the final round of the 2026 Quantbox Chennai Grand Masters with a half-point lead after making a draw against GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov while his co-leader GM Arjun Erigaisi lost to GM Nihal Sarin. The other big story of the penultimate round was World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju dropping to within three points of 2700 after losing a winning position for a second day in a row, this time against GM Pranesh M. In the remaining game, GM Dmitry Andreikin sacrificed a bishop against GM Hans Niemann but soon settled for a draw.Â
Round seven starts one hour earlier on Wednesday, July 22, at 4:30 a.m. ET/10:30 CEST/2 p.m. IST.
Round six witnessed two decisive games, both in the all-Indian clashes.
Firouzja’s fourth draw in a row has given him a half-point lead, though Arjun can overtake him if he wins their final-round game. Abdusattorov is also lurking half a point behind the leader.
Standings After Round 6
Once again, Gukesh seemed set to win his first game on home soil since claiming the world championship title, but just as against Arjun, disaster struck.Â
Pranesh 1-0 Gukesh
Pranesh won an online qualifier on Chess.com to play the 2025 Challengers and performed so well that he could even lose the last round and still win the title and qualify for this year’s Masters. The 19-year-old lost in round one, but since then had made four draws in a row. His first reaction to beating the world champion? “It feels kind of a relief—after six rounds I’m getting the first win!”
“I just got bored of too many draws,” he said on the live stream, while adding his inspiration: “I had breakfast with Adhiban!” That encouraged him to meet Gukesh’s Caro-Kann with the rare 6.h4!?.
There was an unexpected shoutout for WFM Anna Cramling’s Cow Opening, with Pranesh commenting: “I just wanted to play the Cow Opening! This is objectively the best way to play the Cow Opening.”
I just wanted to play the Cow Opening!
—Pranesh M
He did indeed put knights on b3 and g3, as is characteristic of that opening, but a pro tip is perhaps not to try the Cow if you ever encounter a world chess champion at the board.
Pranesh admitted he couldn’t find a move when Gukesh went on the offensive, and 21…Nxb4!! was a blow he’d overlooked.
If you capture with the queen, 22…Bxc5! is crushing, while capturing with the bishop leaves the knight on f4 en prise.
Pranesh struggled on with 22.Kb2, admitted he’d decided “it’s gone!” but had one hope: “The clock is the only thing I can aim for, so I’m just playing fast!” In normal circumstances that wouldn’t be enough against the Gukesh who stormed to the top of the chess world, hitting a 2794 rating in October 2024 before going on to win the world championship title.
At the moment we’re facing a very different Gukesh, however, and, for a second day in a row, he slipped far behind on the clock, blundered away his advantage, and then failed to find the moves to save a still defensible position. By the end Pranesh had an overwhelming advantage.
That’s our Game of the Day, which GM Rafael Leitao analyzes in detail below.
Pranesh’s first win meant he’s back to 50 percent in his first supertournament, and has gone a long way to fulfilling his pre-tournament goal: “Play well and prove that I’m one of them!”
Play well and prove that I’m one of them!
—Pranesh M on his goal going into the 2026 Chennai Grand Masters
For Gukesh, meanwhile, the post-world-championship slump continues. He’s now fallen over 90 points from his high, and almost 75 points behind his world championship challenger GM Javokhir Sindarov. He’s down to 31st place and 2702.9 on the live rating list.Â
Something almost unimaginable a year or two ago is now a real possibility—Gukesh will be out of the 2700 club if he loses to Niemann in the final round in Chennai.
GM Nihal Sarin, at world number-25, is now 16 points higher rated than Gukesh after taking down the Indian number-one.
Arjun 0-1 Nihal
If Arjun had won this game he would have gone into the final round as the sole leader, but it seems he never does anything in the Chennai Grand Masters the easy way. For most of the game Arjun was on top, and then when he lost his edge it seemed the players were just liquidating into an obviously drawn position. Nihal had a bishop against a knight, however, and when Arjun swapped off the rooks, with both players down to a minute on their clock, he was suddenly lost.
That meant that Firouzja only needed a fourth draw in a row to take the sole lead, and that’s what he got against his key rival Abdusattorov. In fact, it was Firouzja, playing the French, who got some chances, after yet another shaky game with the white pieces for Abdusattorov in Chennai.
In the end, however, the advantage fizzled out into an extra pawn that wasn’t felt in a rook endgame.
That kept Firouzja half a point ahead of Abdusattorov, but if the Uzbek star can win in the final round he has excellent chances of a playoff. To do that, however, he’ll need to beat a player who’s made six draws so far—Andreikin.
Andreikin got to be the aggressor against Niemann in round six, executing a strong bishop sac on h3. From there, however, the game quickly ended peacefully.
That draw left Niemann frustrated and winless with one loss in Chennai, though if he draws against Gukesh in the final round he avoids last place. Of course, he may be tempted to play for a win and the bragging rights of sending the world champion below 2700.
The battle that really matters, however, is at the top. Firouzja is guaranteed the title if he beats Arjun, while a draw may also be enough and will at worst lead to a tiebreak with Abdusattorov. If Arjun wins then Abdusattorov must win to force a playoff or the Indian takes the title at his fourth attempt.
Round 7 Pairings
The action begins one hour earlier than usual.
How To Watch
The fourth edition of the Quantbox Chennai Grand Masters is taking place July 16-22, 2026, in Chennai, India. The event is an eight-player round-robin, with 90 minutes for all moves, plus a 30-second increment from move 1. The top prize is ₹25,00,000, which is around $26,000.Â